PRETORIA, South Africa -- Oscar Pistorius bent over in his seat and retched violently at his murder trial Monday as a pathologist graphically detailed the wounds that killed the double-amputee Olympic runner's girlfriend. It was by all appearances a harrowing day for Pistorius, who is accused of the premeditated murder of Reeva Steenkamp, 29, in the early hours of Valentine's Day last year. Earlier, during a court break, he was hunched over and deeply upset, with his sister, Aimee, and brother, Carl, hugging him. Steenkamp was staying at the athlete's house on the night of the killing.

PRETORIA, South Africa - Athlete Oscar Pistorius used expanding bullets that mushroom on impact and cause maximum tissue damage when he shot his girlfriend to death, a pathologist testified Monday in a South African court. One of those bullets penetrated Reeva Steenkamp's head and broke up in her brain, causing a catastrophic injury, and another hit her right hip, shattered a hip bone and broke into small pieces in her body, said pathologist Gert Saayman, who conducted the autopsy.

PRETORIA, South Africa -- Samantha Taylor, blond with dark eyeliner, cut a slight, nervous figure on the witness stand Friday in Oscar Pistorius' murder trial. Taylor, who began dating the South African Olympic athlete in 2011 at age 17, broke down weeping several times when asked in court about breaking up with him in 2012. Pistorius stared coldly at his former girlfriend, whom he dropped for model and lawyer Reeva Steenkamp, as she took the witness stand in Pretoria's High Court, smiling uncertainly.

Don Murray is a man of convictions. When he was 19 and working as an usher at CBS in New York City for $17 a week while attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Murray turned down an offer to sign a contract with Universal for a whopping $150 a week. FOR THE RECORD: Don Murray: An article in the March 7 Calendar section about a UCLA film event honoring actor Don Murray gave the actor's age as 83. He is 84. "They could put you in whatever picture they wanted," explained the genial actor, 83, over the phone recently from his home in Santa Barbara.

PRETORIA, South Africa -- In the minutes after he fatally shot his girlfriend, South African Olympian Oscar Pistorius wept, prayed and begged that she would survive, according to testimony in his murder trial Thursday by a Pretoria radiologist who was one of the first people on the scene. Pistorius, who has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, wept in Pretoria's High Court as the radiologist, Dr. Johan Stipp, offered a graphic medical account of her fatal injuries and described the athlete's distress at the time.

At an Academy Awards ceremony that set out to honor movie heroes of all stripes, an onstage team-up between Spider-Man and the pint-size crusader known as Batkid didn't make the cut. Miles Scott, the 5-year-old leukemia patient who charmed America when he donned a mini-batsuit and defended San Francisco from supervillains during a Make-a-Wish event last year, was scheduled to appear with "Amazing Spider-Man" star Andrew Garfield at the Oscars...

Bent over, with his hands covering his ears, Oscar Pistorius reacted emotionally Thursday to gruesome testimony about the death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, whom he is accused of murdering. The detailed descriptions came from a neighbor who rushed over to Pistorius' home in Pretoria, South Africa, moments after the early morning shooting on Valentine's Day last year, the Associated Press reported. "It was obvious that she was mortally wounded," Johan Stipp testified. "At the bottom of the stairs ... there was a lady lying on her back on the floor.

Oscar Mayer has created an iPhone dongle that functions as an alarm clock by producing the smell of bacon in the morning. But to get one, users will have to enter a contest. The meat company this week began promoting its Wake Up & Smell the Bacon iPhone app. On its own, the alarm clock app works by making sizzling sounds like the ones you hear when cooking bacon. PHOTOS: 10 ways to use the sharing economy But users who win one of the bacon-smell inducing iPhone dongles will be able to use the app to wake up to both the sound and smell of bacon.

There were few surprises during Sunday's Academy Awards show, at least according to the thousands of L.A. Times readers who submitted their Oscar picks via our play-at-home ballot . The average reader got about half of his or her picks correct, with several people getting near-perfect scores. The winner for best picture, "12 Years a Slave," received about 55% of the vote -- with the next most popular choice from the nine-film field, "American Hustle," getting a paltry 14%. Given that most pundits felt the best picture contest was a three-way race among "12 Years a Slave," "American Hustle" and "Gravity," the selection of the eventual winner was a respectable showing indeed.

With one mispronunciation on stage at the Academy Awards, John Travolta created a wildly popular meme - and seemingly an entirely new person - when he introduced "Let It Go" singer Idina Menzel by a name that sounded more like "Adele Dazeem. " The flub was instantly commemorated on social media, and Travolta eventually expressed his embarrassment in an emailed statement on Tuesday afternoon, but he stopped short of saying what exactly caused him to make a mess of the singer's name.